Recently, the Patent Office Reexamination and Invalidation Department of the State Intellectual Property Office orally heard an invalidation request for an invention patent with patent number 201110240931.5 (hereinafter referred to as the involved patent).  The petitioner in this case is Intel (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Intel). ), the patentee is the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Microelectronics).  As the news is related to a patent infringement case with a claim amount of up to 200 million CNY between the two parties, it has caused widespread concern in the industry.

FinFET (Fin Field-Effect Transistor) is called fin field effect transistor in Chinese and is widely used in integrated circuit manufacturing.  The patent involved is titled "Semiconductor device structure and its manufacturing method, and semiconductor fin manufacturing method", and the patent application was filed by the Institute of Microelectronics on August 22, 2011.

In February 2018, Intel, Dell (China) Co., Ltd. and Beijing Jingdong Century Information Technology Co., Ltd. were sued by Intel, Dell (China) Co., Ltd., and Beijing Jingdong Century Information Technology Co., Ltd. to the Beijing Higher People’s Court due to the belief that the Intel Core series processors infringed the patent rights of the patents involved. It asked Intel to stop the infringement, compensate 200 million CNY, and bear litigation costs, while applying for a court to issue a sales injunction.  Currently, the case is under further trial.

Intel has filed multiple invalidation requests in China and the United States for the patents involved, all of which have been rejected or are pending.  Regarding the US patent family of the patents involved, Intel twice filed invalidation requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in September 2018 and March 2019, and both were rejected.

Regarding the invalidation request made by Intel this time, even if it is a patent of the same family, the scope of authorization in different countries is often different, and the presiding authority is also different, so it cannot be assumed that the results of the invalidation procedures in China and the United States must be consistent.  After Chinese invalidation decision is made, both parties to the litigation should make a comprehensive analysis of the case situation and litigation objectives, including the invalidation decision, the win rate of non-infringement defenses, etc.  The possibility of reconciliation between the two parties still exists.

In the field of FinFET, the patent strength of the Microelectronics Institute is relatively prominent.  The FinFET field patent survey conducted by the foreign patent consulting company LexInnova in 2015 shows that the number of patent applications of the Microelectronics Institute ranks 11th in this field, and the quality of patent applications is evaluated as the first.  In the field of integrated circuits, the data of the Integrated Circuit Leading Process Research and Development Center of the Institute of Microelectronics shows that the center has submitted a total of 1475 domestic and foreign invention patent applications (including 389 foreign invention patent applications), of which 932 have been granted (including 333 granted foreign invention patents).  These patents cover the main technical fields of integrated circuit manufacturing technology, such as fin field effect transistor (FinFET), high-k metal gate (HKMG), source-drain technology, etc.

                                         From CNIPA

August 13th, 2020